Just a quick one today! We have written before about Rojo and what a great school assembly performer he is. Well, it seems like every time he visits a school we get another batch of letters in the mail from kids at that school that just loved his show!

Are you old enough to remember 1979? Let me help your memory. 

We recently announced the beginning of school assembly scheduling for the 2011-2012 school year. For our client schools in the great state of Texas, and for all the other fine schools there who have not yet tried one of our awesome school assemblies, here is some fantastic news!

In recent days we have all been mesmerized and appalled at the steady stream of appalling news and devastating pictures and video pouring out of Japan. Our hearts go out to the untold thousands of people in this time of catastrophic injury. Nature is truly ferocious beyond belief or comprehension, and our man made accomplishments are so easily cast aside in its wake.
We are left though wondering how mankind may better prepare against such events in the future, and also facing once more in the wake of the nuclear reactor failures, contemplating a future after fossil fuels when we must have other ways in which to meet our energy needs.
These are not simple problems and they will not go away. And simple answers will not suffice. As the great newspaper man H.L. Mencken once observed “ For every difficult problem there is a simple answer ... and it’s wrong.” :-)

Talking recently about some great school assembly performers we may have mentioned a favorite of ours named David Killion. Dave is from Higgins Lake, Michigan, up in the Northern part of the lower peninsula of Michigan. So when he goes on tour, he has gone a long way before he even leaves the state!

Just a reminder! It is the middle of February and the last thing you want to think about is school assemblies for next year, but.... just like taxes, you have to do it!

Sitting here in the depths of our Michigan winter, we thought to turn our gaze westward toward warmer places for a change. Midwest school assemblies or school shows on the East Coast are usually the topic of this blog, but we have been looking at Michigan school assembly performers and Ohio school assembly performers so much lately I thought we might look westward instead, and follow that California Dream a little. 

In 1957 the world was shaken up especially here in the United States when the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the first artificial satellite. Americans panicked because the Soviets were beating us into space. President Kennedy called for a new national effort to propel us to the moon. Recently President Obama made reference to this moment in his State of the Union address, calling for a new “sputnik moment” in this country aimed at propelling us back to the top in terms of our economy and in particular in education. He referenced specifically the fields of science and math. Obviously, there is merit in his proposal. Other countries are quickly sliding by us through massive investments in education and a strong emphasis on the fields of math and science, areas destined to prove especially important in the high tech world we have entered. Science assemblies and science assembly programs are a perfect way to augment and enhance the teaching of science in our schools. Kids respond to demonstrations of science and better absorb and remember teachings imparted by way of exciting props and activities. All professionally performed educational science assemblies are beneficial in this regard. However, when seeking to enhance this “sputnik moment”, schools could hardly do better than a visit from a portable planetarium such as the Skydome Planetarium. Utilizing a huge silver dome capable of accommodating up to 100 students at a time, and featuring a state of the art Digitalis star projector, Skydome is as close an experience to visiting a traditional “brick and mortar” planetarium as it is possible to have. Students learn about the constellations, Greek Mythology, black holes, the phases of the Moon and all manner of other astronomical phenomena in a fast paced, exciting 50 minute science assembly inside the giant silver dome theatre. This great science assembly is very popular and we offer several tours. If you are in Michigan science assemblies such as this are available of course, as Michigan is Mobile Ed’s home. However, tours of our mobile planetarium travel across Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Missouri, Kansas, Texas, Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Rhode island, Connecticut, Virginia, Georgia and all of the states Mobile Ed visits. Some of our very best science assembly presenters are engaged in these portable planetarium tours to insure the very best science assemblies are delivered to your school. If you are seeking a “sputnik moment” at your school, a science assembly is guaranteed to help and Skydome Planetarium is a sure fire way to go. To infinity and beyond!

A couple of articles about those massive mysterious Black Hole things caught my eye recently. One is about a newly discovered Black Hole apparently so unbelievably ancient that it may hold important clues to the very beginning of the universe (http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/1dVPzk/www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2011/01/epic-discovery-ancient-light-from-a-massive-black-hole-reveals-unknown-history-of-universe.html). The other article was about the types of matter that feed these ravenous monsters and from where most of it comes (http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/01/black-hole-feeding/).

Well, it’s December 17, 2010, and the year is winding down here at Mobile Ed Productions. At lunchtime today the office will close, and, with the exception of a skeleton staff, we will be closed until January 3.